VOORHEES — Down a goal in the third period Tuesday in Buffalo, the Flyers were about 14 minutes away from a three-game losing streak. Once, Sean Couturier knows, that was a problem.

Once. Not anymore.

“Earlier in the year, we were kind of finding ways to lose games,” the Flyers center said the Skate Zone. “Now, we are finding ways to win games. We are a lot more confident in our capabilities to score goals and come back. If we are down a goal or two, we know we can score some goals. So we are pretty confident in our game right now.

“Confidence is huge. At the start of the year, we had a hard time scoring two or three goals in a game. Now we know we are capable of scoring two or three goals in a period. So the mindset is a little different, but at the same time we just have to go out and do what we have to do.”

The Flyers scored three goals in the final 6:32 on Tuesday, outlasting the Sabres, 4-3, when Vinny Lecavalier scored from Matt Read and Couturier with 14.8 seconds left in regulation. It was the eighth time this season they have won after trailing in the third period, one short of the franchise record.

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That could be a quirk, a statistical spike, a coincidence. Or it could say something about the Flyers, their preparatio and more.

“Once you’ve done it once, you have that confidence,” Read said. “That’s something that we lacked a little bit last year and the beginning of this year. We were down a goal in the third period and we didn’t know how to come back. Good teams know how to win games when they’re down in the third period, and that’s something not to be proud of.

“You can’t be coming back all the time. You’ve got to play with the lead once in a while. But it’s something that once you do it once, you get a little confidence and the guys in the locker room and on the bench and know that this is our game and if we’re down one or two goals, we still have an opportunity to win this game.”

Two earlier-season moments suggested that the Flyers lacked that ability to rally: First, when Peter Laviolette was fired for, among other reasons, the lack of team spark; then when general manager Paul Holmgren roared into the dressing room between periods of a 7-0 loss to the Capitals, demanding more.

Since then, they have developed a different identity.

“Obviously we have good character in the room, guys who believe in one another,” Brayden Schenn said. “Before, we used to call ourselves ‘The Comeback Kids’ or whatever. But at the same time, you don’t want to be getting yourself in too many holes or trying to climb your way back to too many games.

“If we have to, we’ll try to do it.”

They try. And they have done it often enough to be within one third-period comeback of tying that club record with under half a season still to play.

“It was 1-1 going into the third, and we knew it was our game,” Read said of the Buffalo game. “It was kind of the calm before the storm. We know we were going to come out flying and unfortunately they got the first one in the third. But guys on the bench, we were like, ‘We’ve still got it, we’ve still got a lot of time, we’re going to win this game.’

“It’s just something that’s built in our character over the season. It is something we’ve got to keep building on.”